The murders in this town must stop! I could actually feel stress and grief gripping my heart this week as I tried to offer support to the family of Zachariah Hallback – the 18 year old Algebra Project student who was murdered last week on the corner of The Alameda and 33rd while waiting for a bus at 8pm. Zach’s Homegoing Service was today at Israel Baptist Church and his mother informed me that there will be a prayer vigil for her son this Monday – MLK, Jr. Day at 6pm on the corner where he was killed.
Concerned Baltimoreans are also mourning the loss of 14-year-old Edward Smith gunned down in Cherry Hill. Smith was a student at the ConneXions Community Leadership Academy. The circumstances involving his murder are yet unclear, but I think that it was truly insensitive on The Baltimore Sun’s part to publish information concerning Smith’s history with the Department of Social Services. Is that supposed to be some type of justification for this child’s death?
The family of 23 year old Collin Mazyck is also mourning his murder as well – a killing that happened in the same neighborhood where Hallback lost his life. Mazyck’s brother was at the prayer vigil just days earlier for Hallback.
The killings must stop! And while we encourage the capture of the perpetrators of these homicides, we also recognize the larger societies role in creating the perfect storm for this murderous behavior. The cost of living has gone up, people have to pay more for less – there is a great fiscal strain on residents that sometimes pushes people into a desperate corner where they make tragic decisions on the basis of self-preservation. Legislators raised the sales tax in Baltimore, BGE rates are through the roof, the cost of gasoline is hovering around $3.05 per gallon and all the while workers wages/salaries have remained the same. Baltimore’s Power Structure may not be pulling the trigger, but it sure is making sure that the bullets are loaded.
Revolution (Change) must happen in Baltimore.
Let’s keep the aforementioned families in prayer and work to create a Beloved Community where every person loves their neighbor as they love themselves.
And while we encourage the capture of the perpetrators of these homicides, we also recognize the larger societies role in creating the perfect storm for this murderous behavior. The cost of living has gone up, people have to pay more for less …!
I’m not so sure that this is not an excuse. Murder is a choice,
and the majority of individuals who are subected to the
same egreious social ills, do not murder people!
Murder is definitely a choice. No argument there. However, I also recognize that social institutions play a role in the level of violence in this city. The violence that the institutions engage in however, isn’t called murder or robbery….it’s called urban renewal, de-regulation, and quick-take procedures. The media’s job is to keep the community focused on the interpersonal violence while steering the public’s attention away from the “socially-sanctioned” violence.
Let me put it like this. After my mentoring sessions on Saturdays sometimes the mentors and I go out to eat at a local buffet restaurant. While everything that I put on my plate is my choice to eat, that which is available for me to choose from had been determined long before I walked in the door. So yes – chicken tenders and fries was my choice, but the menu was manipulated so that my choices would be steered in a pre-determined direction!
Ture writes extensively about the ingredients for the perfect storm in his book, Black Power and The Politics of Liberation. Chapter 7 – Dynamite in the Ghetto, would probably be most appropriate to this discussion. There is also an article by the Indypendent Reader online somewhere about how ghettos are created in Baltimore. It’s an interview with Glenn Ross. If you search for Glenn Ross or maybe Indypendent Reader on my site it should come up.
With all of that said – I don’t excuse the perpetrator from this barbaric act. He pray that the person is arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I just recognize that the barbarity didn’t start with the trigger man.
Thanks for your comment – and really all of your comments. Sometimes I feel like if you weren’t commenting I’d be here chatting with myself.
I hate 2 say it but as long as conditions in this city are such that it’s easier to get a corner or stick up job then a real job – no matter how good you dress and display yourself well in diction at the interview – it will not stop. Good example, back in the 80′s Marion Barry instituted summer jobs for kids in DC. Crime among a certain age group went down. Why? Because they were gainfully employed. When you don’t have to time for the showtime, then things get better. This current mayor wouldn’t even purse her lips to provide any support to people who look just like her and the previous mayor was just jockeying for governorship. As a result, we have what we have…
[...] Waiting for the day when MURDER is played out [...]
[...] Waiting for the day when MURDER is played out [...]